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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25430515">Lemongrass</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmtion/pseuds/charmtion'>charmtion</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire &amp; Related Fandoms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fae &amp; Fairies, Grieving Sansa, Protective Jon, Sexual Content</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:20:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,236</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25430515</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmtion/pseuds/charmtion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>‘Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of her as they ran — scarlet hair whipping her freckled shoulder, her eyes like the sky stretched endless above them — and grow breathless at the beauty of her, wonder what it was that she saw in him that she should choose to bless his life with her laughter, her light.’</p>
</blockquote><br/>Over the years, Sansa has stopped seeing magic in the world. Jon—her childhood friend, the other half of her soul—will do anything to show her that it still exists.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jon Snow/Sansa Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>113</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Magpies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>The hills around the hamlet are thick with flowers. Fragile stems, petals swaying to and fro in the gentle breeze that stirs — lazy, slow — up from the sea. Everywhere, the scent of salt carries, tarries with the honeyed glow of the flowers till Sansa feels as like to choke on it as to drown beneath the weight of all that flurries to frenzy inside her head.</p><p>It is why she has come here: to clear her head, to blow away the thoughts that press and claw like cobwebs at its edges.</p><p><em>Come here</em> — she was sent here, however gently. Persuaded into the car, gifted a breezy kiss to her cheek. Her mother’s tears stuck to her skin the entire duration of the lonely drive; a heady perfume that turned the interior of the car heavy, cloying.</p><p>Grief sickens, they say — corrupts. Turns the sweetest scent to ruin, rot. Sansa could only crack the window half-an-inch, try to breathe through it.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>She walks a lot, tramples the overgrown pathways cut into the hillsides like a honeycomb. At its centre, the sleepy village crooked high on its sea-cliff. Everywhere, the scent of salt; sea-air drying the tears on her cheeks. She wipes her face with the back of her hand every so often, bobs the heads of wildflowers, brings pollen-dipped fingertips to brush the hair back behind her ear.</p><p>She walks — and she does not think of anything but flowers, the gold beads of pollen glowing in her scarlet hair.</p><p>Not home, not letters left — ordered, neat — at her abandoned desk in the office she will never return to. Flowers. That is it, that is all. Wildflowers at her fingertips, cornflowers the same hue as winter roses: pale blue, winter’s first frost. Frost. Papery, white. Like lilies on a casket—</p><p>No.</p><p>She does not think of that, them.</p><p>She walks, feels the flowers — real, alive — kiss at her fingertips.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Back at the cottage Sansa lets the phone ring till it clicks: first to the beep of the voicemail message, then to quiet.</p><p>She should answer it, but lately the thought of holding the feather-weight of the phone in her hand feels heavy. Looks down at her fingers, imagines the flex of the cord twisted between them, the cool plastic of the earpiece fitted round the curve of her jawbone, the hazy buzz of a faraway voice breathing against her lobe.</p><p>Looks away, out to the flowers pressing sunlit colours at the window, turning the glass stained, like something holy.</p><p>The phone rings again — clicks to quiet.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Messages play as she chops garlic, tears basil. It is the only time she can bear to listen to them: when her hands are busy, when the thoughts in her head are swept away with the hum of her breath, the hiss of pans and pasta-water bubbling.</p><p><em>Sansa, it’s</em>—</p><p><em>Mum</em>.</p><p><em>Arya</em>.</p><p><em>Jeyne </em>— <em>you know, your b e s t friend</em>.</p><p><em>Robb here. Earth to</em>—</p><p>
  <em>Sansa?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sansa.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sansaaaaaaa!</em>
</p><p>‘Sh-<em>shit</em>.’</p><p>Runs the tap, holds her scalded thumb beneath the silvery flow. Listens to the water rushing, rushing, <em>rushing</em> — watches her skin turn a paler shade of pink.</p><p>The voices trickle away; the machine beeps to quiet back in the living room.</p><p>Sansa flutters her fingers in the waterfall, then pulls her hand back, shuts off the tap.</p><p>An owl coos in the trees, the leaves it roosts amongst rustle a reply: a little, interwoven thread of woodland magic. She turns back to the stove, imagines the pot she is stirring is a chalice, a cauldron. Chalk-figure of childhood — it almost makes her smile for a moment, at least.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Back then, she was no stranger to magic; she and her siblings were raised on it. Toothless tales tall as their grandmother was tiny. Went to sleep pressed between the dreamy pages of fairy-tales, straw spun to gold.</p><p>Sansa saw it, too. Everywhere. The stars, the moon, the sun, sky, everything in between. Glades dusted with fables, legends. Fae villages made from mushrooms.</p><p>Once, for an entire season, she left shallow dishes of milk and cream out for the fairies, breadcrumbs on her windowsill so the magpies would bless her with happy numbers. Come the morning, the bowls would be empty — and she beaming, bursting.</p><p>The village cats grew very fat that summer.</p><p>She found a stray that summer, too: a non-believer, a magic-scorner — a challenge.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>He was a sullen boy, a little surly — eyes the slate of a summer sky turned stormy. Sansa thought he was beautiful. His curls were ink-wrought, a deep brown that glimmered black in certain lights, and the lines of his face were graceful, clean — even then, softened as they were by the easy years of childhood.</p><p>Nothing else about him was boyish, though. Where the other children kicked footballs on the playground, called each other names, pulled ponytails, twitched skirts, laughed at the cries of outrage and embarrassment they provoked, he stood apart. He watched it all coolly from the seat that he claimed for his own at the very edges of the summer playing field: the dip beneath a gentle hillside where the grass was studded with daises, shaded by the tall oak that spread pale, trembling leaves above it.</p><p>In time, it became Sansa’s seat, too.</p><p>They didn’t say much for days, weeks — maybe months. Time rolled on and they sat together through it, quietly. She picked a few daises every now and then, wove them into chains; he didn’t protest when she looped one around his left wrist, another around her right. One day, she caught him spying at her lunchbox: lick of flame in his eyes to see what she was breaking in half with her fingers.</p><p>‘Lemon cakes,’ she said. ‘You want some?’</p><p>They were friends from that day on.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>There is the faintest thread of that memory sweetening the air of the kitchen now: lemongrass, caught between her fingers, chopped finely, added to crushed garlic, basil, tomatoes from a tin.</p><p>Pinch of salt — black pepper sprinkled with a flourish, a flutter of fingertips.</p><p>Sansa stirs her witch’s pot. Finds herself looking at the phone idle in its cradle at the doorway to the living room.</p><p>Taps the wooden spoon against the pan, tastes the sauce, wills the phone to ring.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Alone at the table, she sits and stares at her half-empty plate. Malbec — rich, sweet — clings to her tongue, her lips. She swirls the wine round and round the glass, taps her thumb against the cool stem, fancies she can read tealeaf fortunes in the ruby glimmer.</p><p>Stars burst at the window like the wildflowers on the hillsides they limn.</p><p>The curtain is half-drawn, the window raised a little off the white-painted sill. Salt washes in on the night-cool air. Sansa breathes it in, takes another sip of wine. Savours it, swallows. Braces a hand against the table’s warped edge and pushes back her chair.</p><p>Wrists ringed with soapsuds stained by the spill of dinner dishes: white, yellow. She thinks of daises, the dogeared days of summer, a childhood spent chasing the delicate scatter of fairy-dust through the forest. Laughter on the sun-splashed air: hers, his.</p><p>She thinks of it, frowns as she realises how long it has been since she has laughed — smiled, even. Of late, it is all she can do but to breathe. Looks at the phone again, suddenly aching to fit its smooth curve against her cheek.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Jon calls at midnight.</p><p>The phone finds its way to her hand, rests there, weightless. ‘Hello?’</p><p>‘Hello yourself.’</p><p>‘Been up to much?’</p><p>‘Working. You?’</p><p>‘Walking.’ Sansa glances at the dishes drying beside the sink. ‘Cooking. I burnt myself.’</p><p>‘Badly?’</p><p>She smiles at the burr in his voice: bristled — as if he is ready to take the hot pan that scalded her skin to task.</p><p>‘I’m okay.’</p><p>A pause, then — ‘Are you?’</p><p>‘No.’</p><p>‘Sansa,’ he says. ‘You can talk to me.’</p><p>‘I <em>am</em> talking to you.’</p><p>Huff of reluctant laughter. Her smile deepens; the well-worn dimples it cuts in her cheeks feel foreign, unfamiliar.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Later — on the sofa, glass of wine in one hand, phone in the other — the dimples are cut even deeper into her cheeks.</p><p>‘Stop it,’ she says. ‘<em>Stop</em> it, Jon.’</p><p>Her sides hurt from laughing. The wine is swirling ruby-bright at the very edges of the glass, threatening to spill, paint a pattern onto her primrose sweater. She grapples it back just in time, leans over to set it on the coffee table as his laugh turns softer at her ear.</p><p>‘I wish I was there with you.’</p><p>Leans back into the cushions, exhales slowly. ‘I wish you were, too.’</p><p>‘Your mum told me you needed to be alone.’</p><p>‘She didn’t lie.’</p><p>‘But you don’t mind me ringing?’</p><p>‘You know I’d tell you if I did.’</p><p>Hears his little leaf-rustle laugh again. ‘You wouldn’t tell me, Sans — you just wouldn’t answer.’</p><p>‘True,’ she says. ‘You sound tired, Jon.’</p><p>‘I am.’</p><p>‘Could do with some sea-air.’</p><p>‘Mm.’</p><p>Her smile shimmers, dips. ‘Plenty of that… here.’</p><p>‘Mmm.’</p><p>‘Are you falling asleep on me, Jon Snow?’</p><p>‘What? <em>No</em>.’ Jaw creaking as he yawns, then — ‘I wish.’</p><p>They laugh together, a little smokily. She takes a breath. ‘Sleep now,’ she says. ‘Okay?’</p><p>‘Okay.’</p><p>‘Call me in the morning.’</p><p>‘Ten?’</p><p>Sansa nips her lip, looks at the white-fire stars glowing at the window. ‘Ten.’</p><p>‘I’m right here. Remember that,’ he murmurs into her ear. ‘Sweet dreams, honey.’</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Halfway to dawn, she wakes. Lays there quietly for a while, stares up at the ceiling, wonders if she will sleep again. A blackbird starts to sing, lilts a little louder as a plucky wren joins its chorus. Sansa folds the duvet back from her hips, slides her aching feet from the bed to press for grip at the floorboards.</p><p>The milkman has been and gone; condensation cooled to a diamond-glitter on the glass bottles. She yawns as she bends to pick them up. Yawns as she sets them down on the kitchen counter. Yawns as she makes tea, stirs a spoonful of sugar into the cup — two.</p><p>Sips it as she stands in front of the window, stares out through the glass. The sky is pearl-grey at points, the orange glow slowly deepening at its centre. Dew clings to the hillsides, and the wildflowers — every stem and leaf and petal — glow red-gold as the gathering light bows up and out, floods day into dark, whispers warmth at the dips and rises of the land.</p><p>An enchantment, she’d have called it once.</p><p>Now, it is just a sunrise.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>When did the magic fade?</p><p>Sansa cannot blame grief, though the dark, sticky tar of it coats the insides of her bones thickly, completely. Makes her days a little dimmer.</p><p>It happened before that. Somewhere along the way — the tawny, tangled years between childhood, college, a career — she stopped seeing magic in the world. It vanished from her life, slipped through her fingers, disappeared into the watery tides of reality.</p><p>The shallow pewter dish she lovingly filled for a season gathers dust now on the middle shelf above the sink. Daylight licks at it in place of milk, cream.</p><p>Did the fae folk mourn the loss of it?</p><p>Or was it just that the village cats grew a little thinner?</p><p>Sansa closes her eyes, puts her tea onto the windowsill. Her fingers find the walls either side of the glass, flatten out till her palms are flush to the cool stone. Her skin is still warm from the cup, her tongue scalded from a careless sip. It burns there: the tea, the bitterness — at the world, at what it is has taken from her, at what she no longer sees within it.</p><p>Enchantments, fairy-tales, a scattering of dust stirred by wingbeat. Empty bowls, the bursting joy the sight of them would set inside her heart. She wants it back — suddenly, desperately — she wants all of it back. Her eyes flash open.</p><p>A magpie is perched in the window-box — two. Little heads tilted at her as they fluff their feathers, preen their wings: black, white.</p><p>She touches her brow in a salute as soon as she sees them: once, twice.</p><p>They look at her as she turns on her heel, rummages in the cupboard, comes back, cracks the window half-an-inch, extends her hand through the gap. They look at her, lower their beaks — peck the breadcrumbs from her palm.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>‘What are you doing?’ he says into her ear. ‘You running or something?’</p><p>Sansa rubs the back of a flour-dusted hand across her forehead. ‘Making bread.’</p><p>‘You’re what?’</p><p>‘I am making <em>bread</em>, Jon.’</p><p>‘What type of bread?’</p><p>She rolls her eyes at the half-squint she can hear on his cheeks. ‘The type that magpies eat.’</p><p>‘Magpies?’</p><p>‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Magpies.’</p><p>That squint deepens, creaks. ‘Why are you making bread for magpies, Sans?’</p><p>‘Because I saw two this morning.’ She shifts the phone to her other ear, tucks it there with a jammed-up shoulder. ‘Fed them stale breadcrumbs. Felt bad.’</p><p>‘Two for joy.’</p><p>‘Exactly.’</p><p>‘And <em>you</em> gave them stale bread in return.’ His gasp crackles on the line. ‘The horror.’</p><p>Sansa tuts at him, laughing, a little breathless now. ‘Will you meet me tomorrow?’</p><p>‘Aye,’ he says — almost immediately. ‘Okay.’</p><p>‘You know the place.’</p><p>‘I know the place.’</p><p>Looks at the gold-glimmer of the day, feels a hint of something gnaw at her belly. ‘I’ll see you there?’</p><p>‘You’ll see me there.’</p><p>‘Ten?’</p><p>‘Ten,’ he murmurs into her ear. ‘Best bring me some of that bread, too.’</p><p>She smiles, laughs. Puts the phone onto the counter, etches a shape into the flour dusting its wooden top. Looks up — out.</p><p>The gold-glimmer slips through the glass of the window, finds a tentative home inside her.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p></p><div class="center">
  <p> </p>
  <p>    <br/></p>
</div><br/>This started life as a quaint little one-shot about Jon and Sansa meeting on the moors: monoliths, milk and honey, that kinda thing. Then I got to thinking about magic, how real life makes it fade from the places we used to see it — and then a bit of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUGKbuWMqgU">Bon Iver</a> shuffled onto my playlist and well… this happened. Maybe you are here for this, maybe you are not — but I am really loving writing it! Let me know what you think if you fancy, my loves! Next chapter is already written, might be I shall see you there. ❤️<p><b>p.s.</b> ‘an enchantment…’ is definitely a nod to that hallowed Jonsa book-quote from <i>A Clash of Kings</i>.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Moorland</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>‘Her fingers tighten on the collar of his tee-shirt; he doesn’t remember her reaching out for him, doesn’t remember how he got to winding the skein of ruby hair around his thumb.’</p>
</blockquote>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>He meets her on the moors — where else but this tangled space between the worlds of men and magic?</p>
<p>There are stones here older than life itself. Monoliths clung to by lichen, carved into monuments to mark pathways of endless footsteps, each standing stooped as the slow unfurling of time that leans upon it.</p>
<p>Little tokens left by travellers litter the soft grass that grows up against these stone stems. Sprigs of herbs bound in brown twine. Jars cracked by nudging muzzles, the honey housed within them become a stolen supper for a hungry herd. Flowers — fresh-cut, yellow, blue — daring the brisk wind to shake off their petals. Last, a shallow pewter dish of milk or cream long dried-out.</p>
<p>Jon smiles to see it.</p>
<p>The fae are a thirsty folk; he knows this well enough, has learned it over all the years he has been a visitor to their time-stooped stones. He puts his hand to the sun-dappled warmth of one now, feels the magic in it, the comfort of its shape, its solidity. They are each of them old friends to him, but his oldest — she is waiting for him.  </p>
<p>He takes his hand away, presses on toward her pull.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jon walks the byways of his childhood, takes for granted that his feet remember them absent of map or marker.</p>
<p>The clover is out, great bursts of it — orange, yellow — licking at the hazy air like flames. Seapinks stir at the salt-brushed edges of the moorland: blooms of blush dipping little pools of rose-coloured light around their stems when the sun catches them just so.</p>
<p>It is almost too beautiful to behold, this swirl of sea-glimmer, sunlight, sky, wildflowers swaying gentle in the breeze.</p>
<p>But he does behold it, quietly.</p>
<p>Takes a sip of water from the bottle in his backpack, cools his tongue as the flames of flowers burst like stars in front of his eyes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>On the brow of the first hill he crests, he glances back at the overgrown pathways he has trampled cut into the hillside like a honeycomb. At its centre, the sleepy village crooked high on its sea-cliff. Everywhere, the scent of salt; sea-air in his lungs, on his lips. He remembers there being tears on his cheeks the last time he climbed here, the stiff streaks of them dried and salted on his skin.</p>
<p>Today, he is smiling.</p>
<p>He hasn’t felt so free in months, in years.</p>
<p>Life sits on him like the well-worn suit he wears to his office in the city: cut close to his shoulders, lightweight, comfortable, but always there — like to aggravate toward the end of the day till it is all he can do not to rip the tie from around his throat as he stands on a packed platform, jostled between elbows on the train ride home.</p>
<p><em>Home</em>. He keeps his gaze on the honeycombed hillside, thinks he has finally stepped off the train to arrive back at it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Before the strings of adulthood pulled them away, they haunted this hamlet like a pair of well-worn ghosts.</p>
<p>They knew all of its secrets: its half-forgotten pathways, its hidden pools — freshwater, inky blue — the tumbledown walls of the abandoned sept that bordered the woodland that shaded their childhood homes.</p>
<p>Grew up together here, quietly. Wore out the soles of their shoes every summer, then ran over the moors barefoot, laughing, free.</p>
<p>Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of her as they ran — scarlet hair whipping her freckled shoulder, her eyes like the sky stretched endless above them — and grow breathless at the beauty of her, wonder what it was that she saw in him that she should choose to bless his life with her laughter, her light.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He used to watch her from his shady perch at the very edges of the summer playing field. He didn’t believe in magic back then, only made a wish upon a dandelion-puff because one was there amongst the daises at his feet.</p>
<p>Next day, she came to sit beside him.</p>
<p>For weeks they didn’t even speak. She wove daisy-chains; he let her put one around his wrist, uncaring of the jeers the other boys made when the bell rang and they ambled back to class. Her fingertips had touched those petals, twisted those stems — gently, deftly — she was in that bracelet, alive, breathing against his skin as the boys jeered and the chalk tapped at the blackboard.</p>
<p>He never made another wish on a dandelion again. Never plucked one from the earth, held its trembling power in his hand — too much magic in them for that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Everywhere, the scent of salt — of Sansa, too.</p>
<p>It carries, tarries with the sea-air: lemongrass washed amongst mint, basil, some darker, more flowery perfume. Fresh, clean, good — almost too good for him to breathe.</p>
<p>But he breathes it, quietly.</p>
<p>Adjusts the straps of the backpack on his shoulders, follows the zigzag of zest down one hillside, up the gentle slope of the next.</p>
<p>Halfway along the rising path, he looks up. Sees her glimmering there on the hilltop. A little breathlessly, she calls out—  </p>
<p>‘Fancy seeing you here.’</p>
<p>—and he laughs, just as breathlessly. He squints up at her, smiles. Waves a <em>hullo</em> even as his fingers ache to cradle the curves of her cheekbones, learn their new, hollowed shape.  </p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Some distant cousin whispered that grief looked good on her. A dozen men had to step in to pull Jon away.</p>
<p>He sat through the service, the bruises on his knuckles slowly staining his skin: purple, pink — red as the hair falling over her tear-stained face.</p>
<p>There was saltwater stinging his own eyes; but he didn’t cry. He coughed angry, tearless sighs and kept his gaze fixed on the flowers — papery, white — that lay like frost on the ironwood coffin.</p>
<p>Later, as the dark casket was lowered into the gloomy grip of the ground, Catelyn buckled to her knees, clutched at the soil, clawed at it with black-painted fingernails. Ned’s name clung to her lips — she keened it, cried: a mirror to the quieter agony etched on Sansa’s face.</p>
<p>Jon stalked the wake, found the distant cousin that had dared call such agony anything but what it was. His hand ached for days afterward; he kept the tooth his fist had knocked out a while, then left it for the fairies to find.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>‘This is good.’</p>
<p>Sansa looks across at him, beams. ‘Really?’</p>
<p>‘Really,’ he says. ‘Too good for magpies.’</p>
<p>Blue eyes roll to the skies even as she laughs, cuts more bread for him. Cheese, too. Few grapes done up in a twist of brown paper that she pulls apart with her fingers, proffers. He takes one, puts it on his tongue, rolls it to his cheek. Bites — pool of sweetness bursting on his tongue.</p>
<p>‘How was the drive?’</p>
<p>Looks at her as he takes another grape from her fingers. ‘Fine. Long-ish. Pretty — just how I remembered it.’</p>
<p>‘We used to come up here all the time,’ she says softly. ‘Even when we were at uni, we’d come back here every summer. Visit all our old haunts.’ She looks at him, quietly. ‘Then Mum moved away and I… I just never came back.’</p>
<p>‘You’re back now.’</p>
<p>She touches his wrist very gently. ‘You are, too.’</p>
<p>‘I brought you something.’</p>
<p>He digs into his backpack, finds the little brown box, hands it to her. He smiles to see the lick of flame appear in her eyes as she opens the lid.</p>
<p>‘Lemon cakes!’ she says, then, a little softer — ‘You want some?’</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Memories make up the moors: in the monoliths, the standing stones scattered across it, the cairns at its ragged peaks, the thousand-year-old causeways made by man and beast — in its soil, buried deep.</p>
<p>There is magic here, too.</p>
<p>Look — and look again. It is everywhere. The stars, the moon, the sun, sky, everything in between. Glades dusted with fables, legends. Fae villages made from mushrooms. Wildflowers: a sprig of them tucked behind Sansa’s ear.</p>
<p>‘Ready?’</p>
<p>She nods, exhales. ‘Ready.’</p>
<p>Bellies full, they walk and walk and walk. Day dips to noon, drips slowly toward dark; a nightingale takes up the wren’s tune. There are distant sounds — hazy, faraway — as the sheep graze the rough grasses, as the cattle low and flick the flies from their sides with feather-tipped tails.</p>
<p>Jon looks at their shapes in the dimming sunlight, the dust-motes glittering like stars around them, the beads of pollen glinting gold against the amber tones of Sansa’s hair. The well-worn suit life has knitted him seems to melt from his shoulders suddenly.</p>
<p>It lifts from him — swiftly, surely — as if by magic.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>His mother’s marker is at the northernmost edge of the moor: a dip beneath a gentle hillside where the grass is studded with sundews, shaded by the tall rowan tree that spreads pale, trembling leaves above it.</p>
<p>Her grave is in some dark, shadowy crypt half a thousand miles away from here. But this is where her spirit lies, truly — this place he made for her with his own hands.</p>
<p>Sansa helped him. Moved stones, made it pretty. Sat with him a thousand nights to keep a quiet candlelit vigil, listen to him talk about his mother: her troubled, tragic life, the ruthless edge to how she loved him — so deeply, fiercely he sometimes mistook adoration for anger in her misty eyes.</p>
<p>‘Hello, Mum.’</p>
<p>Carefully, he clears scarlet berries from the moorland marker, traces his thumb the neatly-etched lines of her name. Sansa steps up behind him as he kneels, bends to unbuckle his backpack. He feels her hand shifting around inside it, the gentle pull as her fingers brush the bundle bound in brown twine.</p>
<p>‘Thank you, Sans.’</p>
<p>He takes the flowers from her, props them up against the stone stem of his mother’s marker. They furl outward — fresh-cut, yellow, blue — a single winter rose at their centre. Sansa dips to her knees beside him, leans her head to his shoulder as she reaches out a hand to ease the rose from leaning crooked.</p>
<p>‘There,’ she says. ‘Your favourite, Lyanna.’</p>
<p>A tremble starts in his lower lip; but he swallows it down. Now is not the time for tears — the gods know he has wept his share of them, felt them stiffen to salt on his cheeks. He takes Sansa’s hand, presses a kiss to the palm of it.</p>
<p>It is his turn to help her as she helped him: to lend her his hands, make a place on this moor for her father. For Ned Stark — the man who was like a father to him, too.</p>
<p>They get to their feet now, quietly.  </p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sansa doesn’t speak again till midnight.</p>
<p>There is soil beneath her nails, a streak of it across her left cheek. She wipes at the tears that track through it with the back of her hand. ‘I miss him.’</p>
<p>‘You always will.’</p>
<p>‘We might — ’ a little gasp-sob, smoothed by a swallow. ‘Sometimes we might not have seen eye to eye on everything. But — <em>but</em> I loved him, Jon. So much.’</p>
<p>He finds her hand. ‘You always will.’</p>
<p>‘I miss him,’ she says softly. ‘I missed you, too.’</p>
<p>‘I’m right here,’ he murmurs. ‘I always will be.’</p>
<p>Her fingers tighten on the collar of his tee-shirt; he doesn’t remember her reaching out for him, doesn’t remember how he got to winding the skein of ruby hair around his thumb. He closes his eyes as she steps into his body, as he commits her warmth to the lines of his bones, holds her close as she weeps softly. He puts his lips to her ear.</p>
<p>‘Do you remember what the fae like to drink?’</p>
<p>A muffled little sob into his shoulder. ‘What?’</p>
<p>‘Fae,’ he says softly. ‘Fairies.’</p>
<p>‘They’re not real.’ She lifts her face from his warmth, blinks up at him. ‘None of it is.’</p>
<p>He smiles at her, wipes a tear away with his thumb. ‘There’s magic everywhere,’ he says. ‘You taught me that.’</p>
<p>‘I don’t see it anymore,’ she whispers. ‘I used to see it in everything. Now a leaf is just a leaf — birds are just birds.’</p>
<p>‘You made bread for a pair of magpies, Sans.’ He crooks a brow at her. ‘I think you still believe in a bit of magic. Just a <em>bit</em>.’</p>
<p>She rolls her eyes at him even as her cheeks lift in a reluctant, tear-stained smile. Their foreheads touch and her fingers unfurl till her palms are smooth against his chest. Mumbles something — he tilts his ear at her, half-jokingly, smiles as she repeats herself:</p>
<p>‘Milk and honey,’ she whispers. ‘How could I forget?’</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          
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</div><br/>I must confess that this story is a soothing balm to write amidst the busyness and general chaos of life at present. The next/final chapter will be a mixed-POV and the rating may bump up to <b>E</b> depending on how my edits go. Thank you so much for reading if you are here doing just that; I hope you have a magical day wherever you are. ✨❤️
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Milk and Honey</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>‘That warmth is in his chest again now, and the dim-lit air of the cottage is slowly turning charred from the heat gathering at its edges.’</p>
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          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>There is a glimmer of pre-dawn light in the sky by the time they have left the moors.</p><p>Sansa swallows, meets Jon’s gaze — the truth in it. Her mouth is dry, and the air in her lungs fizzes: staticky, electric. Crackles across her collarbone.</p><p>It has built today, step by step, slope by slope — the gods know there is already too much between them.</p><p>Her fingers brush his wrist; the inside of it is soft as the look he keeps on her.</p><p>‘Is that why you called me?’</p><p>Lifts her chin, just a little. ‘You called <em>me</em>.’</p><p>‘Aye,’ he says — and his throat sounds thicker. ‘Suppose I did.’</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Back at the cottage, the air is dark, dim. Getting back here quickly was the most important thing only a moment ago; Sansa could not think of anything else. She would’ve spent a wish from a lamp if one had appeared. Stolen a magic carpet. Flown to quiet, dark — the moon-glow of his body bare amidst it.</p><p>Now they stand in the hallway, a little breathless, their faces limned by the faint, reddish glow of the numbers — <em>36</em>, <em>unheard </em>— on the answering machine.</p><p>A flicker in Jon’s jaw.</p><p>Sansa puts her hand to his cheek, leaves a spot of soil on his skin. Looks at the dark ridges of earth banked beneath her nails.</p><p>‘Sorry.’</p><p>He only shakes his head, tilts it. ‘Come here.’</p><p>‘We—<em>Jon</em>.’</p><p>A rumble of thunder in her chest, a flicker of storm-light behind her eyes. Her tongue touches his, and she melts, explodes — gathers light and holds it till every bit of her feels glowing, soft, rippling as the sun-stirred surface of the sea breaking at the world outside the window.</p><p>‘Sansa.’</p><p>Reverent, holy: the way he whispers it, draws her back into the room, the dim-lit hunger striking its air. She tries to say his name back to him; but it is muffled, murmured against his tongue, the tendon she kisses beneath his ear — corded tight now as her lips dip and drift, find a well-worn pathway to the curve of his shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>He kissed her after the wake. He shouldn’t have kissed her.</p><p>She was drunk on the salt of her tears, a little tipsy from the wine served at that sticky, dark-wood pub — so was he. But he shouldn’t have kissed her. He should have untangled her fingers from his hair — gently, deftly — and given her his shoulder to sob into instead.</p><p>But their lips met: a timid glance, and the ice of the air was flame-licked suddenly. Her fingers tightened, her mouth opened onto his own, and warmth bloomed between his ribs.</p><p>That warmth is in his chest again now, and the dim-lit air of the cottage is slowly turning charred from the heat gathering at its edges.</p><p>Honey sticks to her fingertips, shines a gloss on her lips — on his now, too. Her tongue presses to the bloom of blood-beat beneath his ear, then her teeth nip cleanly at it. Something stirs in his belly, a thread inside him snaps, comes loose. He wraps his fingers into her hair, tilts her head, swallows the sound of his name from her mouth.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>For a moment, it is glorious. Her scalp sings and she moans into his mouth as the grip he keeps on her hair jars slightly, makes the song shimmer all the sweeter. Every bit of her aches. Her fingers find his hip; she hooks her thumb into a denim-loop, feels the smooth leather of his belt glide against her skin.</p><p>Everything is glorious, sweet and good—</p><p>Then Jon pulls back from her, gasping.</p><p>‘Sorry. <em>Shit</em> — I’m sorry.’</p><p>Her lips are parted. They feel bruised. ‘Why?’</p><p>‘Sex is never the answer.’</p><p>There is honey on her tongue, grit. She looks at him: the lift of his quickened chest, the gloss she has left on his lips. They have shared a kiss or two before, a fumble of fingers — frantic, knowing — beneath the shadows of a too-late party, the weightless wine-glow of a dozen such milk and honey moments at weddings, wakes. Sansa remembers them now, and her heart lifts higher in her chest: bursting, indignant.</p><p>‘Isn’t it?’</p><p>His eyes glint the same shade as her memories: similar words, roles reversed. ‘Sometimes. But it doesn’t solve anything.’</p><p>‘I don’t need solving.’ There is a lace of anger tightening her throat now, turning the tone on her tongue a little barbed. ‘I’m not a <em>prob</em>— ’</p><p>‘No,’ he says softly. ‘You’re not. Of course you’re not.’</p><p>Anger floods away, the ribbon drifts from her throat. She looks at him, down at his hand — the fingers of which she doesn’t remember weaving between her own. Carefully, she lifts it to her mouth; his knuckles bump beneath her lips.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>‘You hit him.’</p><p>Jon is watching her mouth move across his hand, hazily. ‘What?’</p><p>‘At the wake,’ she whispers. ‘You hit Harry.’</p><p>‘I hit him.’</p><p>‘You knocked his tooth out.’</p><p>‘Aye,’ he says. ‘Took it, too. Left it for the fairies to find.’</p><p>He feels her smile against his skin, sees a fragile glimmer of its shape reflected in the eyes she raises to meet with his own.</p><p>‘Do you think they found it?’</p><p>‘Mm.’</p><p>Her smile shimmers, dips. ‘The milk and honey that we left them tonight — that, too?’</p><p>‘Mmm.’</p><p>She lifts to her tiptoes as if she is bound to the thread of his breath, the murmur he is making from it. The air around them is dim and charged. Her hands come to rest on his shoulders as she rocks — up, <em>up</em> — till he puts his palms to her waist, steadies the flight of her body. His chin rasps against her brow; she tips back her head, gazes up at him.</p><p>‘It doesn’t have to be an answer,’ she says now — and he aches with the truth of it, the relief. ‘It’s enough that we both want it. This. Each other.’</p><p>He does not trust himself enough to speak. The sounds in his throat, on his tongue are shapeless, drifting. At the gentle press of her lips to the corner of his mouth, he opens his eyes — and curses himself for ever closing them. He bows toward her throat now, smooths his cheek against the curve of it. She puts her lips to his ear.</p><p>‘I’m yours, Jon. I always have been,’ she says softly. ‘Okay?’</p><p>‘Okay.’</p><p>‘Mm — come to bed, then.’</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Footsteps sound softly on the staircase as sunlight begins to gnaw away the inky clouds.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>At the window, a pair of magpies feast on a handful of breadcrumbs: a gold-glimmer against the slate of the sill.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>On the moors, between the knots of memory wrought in stone and soil, the fae come out to dance in the dawn, drunk on honey. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dip little fingertips into a shallow pewter dish, take a sip of milk — of magic.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Somewhere, a bedroom door creaks open…</em>
</p><p> </p><p><em>… creaks shut</em>.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>Sansa feels like the flowers on the hills around the hamlet: petal-soft, blooming in a pool of rose-coloured light. The back of her hand is against her forehead, her breath is tangled in her throat. She bites her lip, nips at it as her hips shift against the sheets.</p><p>‘Gods. Oh, <em>gods</em>.’</p><p>Hears his little leaf-rustle laugh — <em>feels</em> it. ‘You want to come for me, honey?’</p><p>‘I’m close,’ she moans. ‘Fuck, I’m so <em>close</em>.’</p><p>‘Mm. I’m here,’ he soothes. ‘I’m right here.’</p><p><em>Here</em> — and he is. His tongue a lazy circle, quickening a little now, then folding her up into his mouth. The sound of it — wet, soft — scatters, sparkles behind her eyelids like stardust, sunlight. She feels plush and tender and open beneath him; the tips of the fingers he has inside her stroking so softly she wants them there forever. Her hand finds his head.</p><p>‘Yes,’ she says: breathless, spinning. ‘Yes, Jon. <em>Yes</em>. Yes!’</p><p>‘That’s it.’ Jaw working as he kisses, gentles her through it. ‘So good, sweetheart. You’re so good for me.’</p><p>She murmurs at his praise, stretches, luxuriates within the warmth of it. She feels it, too — <em>good</em>. Like the flowers on the honeycombed hillsides: real, alive. Her bones are cleaner, lighter. Like somebody has taken a knife to them — the flat of one — and started to scrape the tar from their long, pale lines.</p><p>The air is dawn-lit now, no longer dim.</p><p>Her eyes open; she reaches for him.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>‘Inside,’ she murmurs into his ear. ‘I want you to.’</p><p>His hips stutter, still. ‘You do?’</p><p>‘Please.’</p><p>There is a little yellow box of pills on the bedside table, a half-punched silver sheet spilling out of it. Neat little day-marked lines, one dissolving in her bloodstream even now. It isn’t the fear of them not working that makes him pause, though. It’s the thought of folding his entire self into someone else — someone he loves more than anyone, more than anything.</p><p>Sex has never felt like this. Holy, profane — all at once. He can still taste her first climax on his tongue, and the thought of coming inside her makes him breathless. She squeezes down on him now; his hips jolt forward to follow her pull, then drag back slowly. He groans into her neck, brackets her body with his own as he pushes them both — higher, <em>higher</em>.</p><p>‘Jon.’</p><p>He comes at the soft little whisper of his name. His spine arches as the bedframe rattles against the wall and birdsong drifts in through the window. Palm on his chin, fingers probing over his bottom lip — pulling him down to her mouth. He kisses her as her legs tighten around his hips, as he folds his entire self into her body.</p><p>Looks into her eyes now — realises he did that a long time ago.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Barefoot, they run down to the sea. The sound of their laughter carries on the air; Sansa has never felt this free.</p><p>They step through the long stems growing like lemongrass at the edges of the soft, banked dunes. Find a few wildflowers to pick. Daises, daylilies — orange, yellow — some bayberry sprigs. Sansa drifts their petals out to sea. Lets the earth wash away from beneath her nails, then follows the dark, dancing veins of it into the water.</p><p>Jon touches a fingertip to a dandelion-puff shimmering in the gentle breeze, leaves it safe in its little patch of sandy soil. Turns away to run down from the dunes toward the gold-glimmer of the waves breaking softly on the beach.</p><p>Milk and honey drifts from them with the dirt and the soil. His arm comes around her waist; her fingers find his nape, his face. She wonders at how his jawbone fits so perfectly within her palm.</p><p>Leans close to press a kiss to it. ‘Hello.’</p><p>‘Hello yourself.’</p><p>They smile at each other, spin in the swell. There are no tears on their skin now, just the salt of the sea all around, washing them clean.</p><p>The sunlight sparkles on the water; Sansa can feel the warmth of it. There is magic in the world again, and she and Jon are a part of it.</p><p> </p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
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</div><br/>So, yeah, that’s that &amp; an extra sparkly thank you to you few lovelies who have indulged me this sunny little distraction. You’re the best! ✨✨❤️
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